


Homestay

by tanktrilby



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-17 16:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4673603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanktrilby/pseuds/tanktrilby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A test, a grey world, and a boy with bleached blond hair who makes him laugh; or, How Sasaki Haise Came Back to Life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homestay

_A metal chute full of grey. Arms pressed tight against your sides, elbows digging into the softness of your stomach._

_You?_

_You are a person. Maybe. Your lungs, which you use to breathe, are getting slowly squeezed by the same metal tube. Your world is full of grey. If you are a person, you’re not a very happy one. The world is grey, swollen, dark-_

“Hey.”

_Bright._

“Hey! You listening?”

_One spot of brightness and warmth in the greyness of the world. You, the person, are absurdly comforted._

**Yes. I think.**

“Whoa, had me worried for a second there. You okay, man? Figuring stuff out alright?”

**No.**

“Don’t worry, that’s normal. You’re doing fine. This world, this place, is where it all gets sorted out: whether you’re getting reborn, or if it’s something completely different for you. See those doors?” Pause. “Well, one of those leads back to the next life, and the next is for Heaven or Hell or something, I’m a bit cloudy on the details. But see that third door?”

_You hadn’t. But now you do, illuminated by the spark that’s blooming with life in the middle of the darkness. You get the impression that your host is waiting for you to show interest: you sense excitement, like he can’t wait to tell you._

_Despite yourself, you are moved._

**What’s that door.**

_The brightness grows._ “That’s your door! You’re one of the special ones. You get to go back and live part of your life as a stranger, as a sort of test. If you win, congratulations! You can go back to living again. If you lose, you’re back here with only two doors.”

**Why.**

“Why, what?”

**If I’m here, that means my time’s up, right? I don’t want to go back to a world that doesn’t need me anymore. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go back at all.**

“Don’t be like that! The world always has a place for you. It’s up to you to figure out what it is. Maybe it looks different from what you were expecting, but doesn’t that make things more interesting?”

**Do I have a choice?**

“Sure you do. But think of it as a video game: you’re getting to go back to your savestate knowing what you know now. Isn’t that cool? You get to live a new life, and if you do it right you’ll figure out stuff about yourself as well. At the end, if it all goes well, you can accept what mistakes you made and accept yourself. I’m rooting for you, man!”

**Will you come with me? What’s your name?**

“As your supervisor, it’s my job. Call me Hide. Hey, I’m like your spiritual guide. Who knows what I’ll look like in the human realm! Maybe I’ll be a cool-looking deer, I’ve always wanted to be a deer.”

**Can’t be helped then.**

“That’s the spirit! Go forth, young warrior! I’m right behind you.”

_The door opens on its own. On the other side, light. You can still barely make out your spot of brightness, and it hovers close, laughter echoing in your ears. Beyond it is the grey world that you’re leaving behind._

_That’s something, at least._

*

At the end of the light, a man leans over you. When he sees your eyes open, he adjusts his glasses and takes a step back. “Ah, you’re awake. Welcome back.”

_Who…what?_

“It looks like you can’t speak yet. Sensei said that was normal, and it would take time, so I would like you not to worry.”

The searing whiteness of the room is brutally unfamiliar. You try to shift, and find that you can’t.

“Ah, those are just a paranoid precaution,” says the man, as you stare down at the bindings around your arms in horror. They’re all over you; the ones above your chest barely give you enough room to breathe. _How is this any better than the metal pipe, Hide?_

Your eyes sweep over the room again, and you go still when a boy with bleached blond hair beams at you from a corner of the room he definitely wasn’t in before. “Yo!” He indicates himself, his bright clothes and hair, with a mock-rueful smile. “Guess I didn’t end up as a deer after all. Bummer.”

_What is he-_

“Hey, I suggest you listen to this guy, he’s kinda important.” Hide nods at the white-haired man. “I’ll clear the rest of the stuff with you later, not that there’s much to it. Relax!”

“You’ll be released in a few days’ time, if Sensei allows it. Before that, I would like to make a proposition.”

You eye him.

“My name is Arima Kishou, and I work for an organization called the CCG where you would be welcomed as a valuable asset. I’m told you remember next to nothing about your previous life?”

Your head slides up and down the pillow. Hide gives you the thumbs-up, and then continues trying to peek into the files the man has in his hand. Arima’s expression doesn’t change even when Hide overbalances; Hide falls straight through him and sits up blinking. He looks down at his own hand, and then at you. His expression is so dramatically dismayed that you have to bite back a smile.

“We’ve already assigned you an alias, unless you have any suggestions?”

You shake your head.

“Well then, you will be Sasaki Haise for now. I imagine it must be difficult not to know what to call yourself.” Arima smiles, and his sharp features soften to make him look younger. “I hope you have a speedy recovery, and that you will consider our offer. Good day, Sasaki-kun. If you’ll excuse me.”

Your head goes up-down again. Hide perches himself on the bed near your pillow, and you both watch Arima leave, a tall, straight figure in a blindingly white coat.

“He seems alright,” Hide observes. “And hey, he gave you a job! Way to go, man.”

You snort. _They’ve got me strapped to a bed. It’s hardly a choice._

Hide flicks your nose and his fingers are solid enough; one question answered. You try to bite his fingers and he laughs. “Come on, it’s your second shot at making it! Let’s do this shit. By the way, figured out your place in the world yet?”

You make a face. _What do you think?_

Hide sighs, long and exaggerated. “The struggle continues. Need anything? As your guide from the World Beyond, it’s my job to help you figure shit out.”

You hesitate.

“What is it?” Hide’s brown eyes are warm and attentive, crinkled at the corners in anticipation of a smile. He’s got a nice face; you think about the brightness that lit up the sludge of the world before and think that this is a pretty accurate version what that light looks like, as a person.

_A mirror. I’d…I’d like a mirror._

*

Sasaki’s world sets itself out in puzzle pieces before him. The CCG is his life, and he finds that he likes it okay. Mado Akira is a terrifying woman, but a wonderful superior and she regards Sasaki without any prejudice and treats him like any other newly-minted Investigator. He sits through meetings and lunches with her and Hide exults about how pretty she is, like he hadn’t seen her take down a group of five ghouls without batting an eye.

The Quinx are harder to parse. They’re all kids, and it’s a struggle to understand the intentions behind their actions. Hide listens to him as Sasaki paces his room through the night, worrying about them, worrying about what their ambition and his own lenience will lead them. “Sasaki’s life is kind of shit,” Sasaki says, “can I switch?” making Hide pummel him with a pillow while shouting about heresy.

Soon, it’ll be summer again, and Urie and Shirazu will wander off without his guidance and get injured or worse. He watches over them fretfully. “They’re good kids,” he mutters, and catches Hide smiling sadly at him. It makes his words stutter to a halt; Hide’s eyes widen with something close to panic before he lunges at Sasaki to give him a noogie.

“Listen up, little grasshopper,” Hide announces loudly as Sasaki struggles. “You’re being a silly-pants so I’ll give it to you straight. Accepting who you are doesn’t mean doing everything right, or having all the answers.” He puts his hands on Sasaki’s shoulders and looks straight into his eyes. “Quit trying so hard, Haise.”

Sasaki can’t stop staring. “Hide, you-”

“Say it with me: Sasaki Haise is a worrywaddler and a doofus-bean and he should just chill for a bit.” After a second, Hide relents. “Don’t mind me, seeing you worry makes me feel like doing it too. You make it look so cool.”

 Sasaki huffs, and looks away. His chest still feels weird, like his heart jumped out and was forced back in his ribcage without him noticing. He’d never seen Hide look like that before.

*

“Urie’s investigating on his own again.”

“That murder in the ice rink, right? Is he wearing his _loner_ skates?”

“He’s got a _ice_ grip on a lead.”

“So don’t lose your _chill_ over it, he’ll be as right as frozen rain. Hey, come over here and help me with this crossword.”

*

Half a year later, he is shuddering and shaking, the RC suppressants blazing fire along his veins. Fever-swept, he strains to listen and keeps asking about his squad, whether Mutsuki made it out on time. He would never forgive himself if he hurt them, hurt someone close to him…

Kaneki sits quiet and malevolent in his mind. Sasaki can’t sense him clearly all the time but he’s there, waiting, waiting to strong-arm his way to the front and snap Sasaki’s consciousness like a twig. _A stranger’s life,_ Hide had said, but the owner of the body Sasaki was sent back to is resilient and strong. He wishes he’d told Hide about the nightmares, given him a little warning. Hide probably blames himself.

His sharpest fears are laid to rest when Mutsuki visits, his arm in a sling, kind eyes alight with nervousness. “Sir,” he says, and his voice wobbles.

Sasaki manages -with a little help- to haul himself upright. He grimaces. It feels like his whole body is rewriting himself, clawing its way back to human and ripping the ghoul parts to shreds in the process. The doctors say he’ll be back to normal by the next day, but he’ll have to weather hell till then. Sasaki supposes it’s the price to pay for going so close to the brink.

“How are your injuries?” Sasaki examines his expression. “And the rest of the Squad?”

Mutsuki blinks. “They’re fine, sir. I- I think you should be more worried about yourself.”  

The pain in his head grows louder. Before Akira had brought him down, Kaneki had been talking- and Hide had been talking back. Hide had called him by name.

“No,” Sasaki says briefly, and Mutsuki flinches. “I failed. I’m a terrible leader. Before I lecture Urie, I should take a hard look at myself and my inability to protect my subordinates.” He stares at his hands. They were Kaneki’s hands once, and he is no more than a misplaced soul in someone else’s body. “I lost control, and put you guys in danger. That doesn’t look like proper leadership to me. I should-”

“But you were doing it to protect us!” Mutsuki bursts out. “You were trying-”

“And failing.” Sasaki’s voice is harsh. He sounds like Kaneki: cold, brutal. “It doesn’t matter what my intentions were.”

There’s a silence. Sasaki wishes that he wasn’t so aware that his subordinate was crying; the slow, soft tears of someone who is used to crying quietly and alone. His fists clench, and the burn gets sharper. He waits for Mutsuki to leave.

Finally, in a tiny voice, Mutsuki says, “It matters to me.”

Sasaki’s heavy head rises.

“It matters to me,” Mutsuki repeats, wringing his good arm in a short, aborted motion. “You treat us like friends and you made us a home, like we were a family, and you care to the point of giving in to- to something you h-hate to protect us.” He looks up and his eyes land just shy of Sasaki’s, still timid but determined. “The others might not see how great that is, but it’s i-important to me.”

Sasaki stares. “You’re not afraid?” he asks, in a whisper-thin voice.

Mutsuki’s shoulders square. “Not of you, sir.”

Sasaki’s whole body slumps. Mutsuki, alarmed, takes one step towards him, but Sasaki says, “Thank you. I’m fine now. Guess I was being a silly-pants, huh.”

“Oh, no sir, it’s totally natural to feel bad about yourself after something like that!”

Sasaki’s eyes sting painfully. “Yeah? I’m relieved, then.”

Mutsuki leaves in a flurry of apologies for taking up his time. Sasaki watches him go, and then leans back, and waits for Hide.

*

Hide climbs in through the window in the middle of the night. Sasaki, shuddering and shaking through the worst of his fever, sees him enter specter-like and is _struck_ by him, the way he first was in that dismal grey world. A splatter of raindrops follow Hide in and Sasaki watches him shiver, drawing his jacket closer around him. His heart _aches_ with love _._

“Hey,” he says, almost too quiet to be heard over the swoosh of the rain, but Hide startles nevertheless.

“Hey, what are you doing up? Haise-”

“Say my name again.”

Those brown eyes couldn’t be wider. Hide comes up to him, one slow, scared step at a time. “Haise, what- are you feeling okay?”

In one swift movement, Sasaki pulls him close and brings his face close. Their noses brush, Hide’s bright hair tickling his face. “Sasaki Haise,” Sasaki says, pleadingly. He was wrong about Hide’s eyes; they now grow even wider, as big as saucers, and Sasaki can feel his own rabbitting heartbeat reflected in them. “Please say it.”

“Sasaki Haise,” Hide says, and Sasaki kisses him.

Hide’s lips are soft and warm, and have a hint of rain clinging to them. He kisses back like he’d die without it, like he wants to crawl into Sasaki’s ribcage and carve his name on his heart. He kisses like he never wants to leave.

“I remembered,” Sasaki breathes, in between kisses. “Not all of it, but. The important part.”

Hide laughs breathlessly, a hot puff of air on Sasaki’s face. “Congratulations, man. Always knew you could do it.” He traces his thumb over Sasaki’s cheekbone, gentle and reverent. “What did you-”

“I was Kaneki Ken,” Sasaki says. Hide shakes in his arms. “You dumbass, you returned me to my own body.”

“It was int-intentional, I promise you,” Hide says. Sasaki kisses him again, just because he _can._ “Makes sense in the general scheme of things. Wh-what else?”

“Not much,” Sasaki admits. “I don’t pass until I remember my sins, right?”

“No.”

Hide’s voice -unsteady since the beginning- trembles badly now. A slow feeling of dread sweeps over Sasaki.

“No? No what?”

“You don’t pass when you remember them,” Hide says, and Sasaki realizes -belatedly- that the raindrops on Hide’s lips had tasted of salt. He pushes him aside and Hide goes like a rag doll, head bowed and -Sasaki checks- eyes streaming tears. “You pass when you overcome them.”

“You told Mutsuki that a home is built over time. That’s what love is. That’s what the world’s like. With time, you learn to move forward again.”

Sasaki’s heart goes still. He stares at Hide, unable to speak, willing him not to go on.

“You are the soul of Kaneki Ken, now Sasaki Haise,” Hide says, and his voice hitches on a sob. Tears patter on Sasaki’s chest freely. “And your sin was murder. Murder of your best friend, and murder of yourself.”

_No._

“Double-crime, so you had to be forgiven by two people.” Hide smiles, perfectly lovely. “But man, you know, you never had to earn my forgiveness, only yours.”

“No,” Sasaki’s reaching out, but the light gets in his eyes, he’s blinded. “No, no, no, no. _Hide!”_

“You’ll forget about me coming back,” Hide goes on, even as he dissolves into light. “I belong in your past, Haise. This is the world you built for yourself, the world you're going to keep living in. But I’ll be waiting.” He crashes his forehead against Sasaki’s, and it hurts, and Sasaki’s _glad_ because it means Hide’s still here. For whatever few seconds he gets, Hide’s _his._ “Take your time, but when it’s up, come straight to me, do you hear? No stopping, no getting distracted. _Come to me._ ”

“Yes,” Sasaki rasps, and he thinks he hears the echo of laughter, and laughs a little himself. “I promise.”

The rain stops. The light dies out.

And Hide is gone.

*

“Congratulations on the successful mission, Investigator Sasaki,” Akira says. She is stuffing naan at an alarming rate down her face, and the squad looks fascinated and horrified in equal measure.

“Ah, yes,” Sasaki says, and elbows Mutsuki. “Mutsuki-kun and Urie-kun did most of the work, so praise them instead.”

“Hm,” says Akira. “I’m aware. You’ll be rewarded highly for this, you two. And Investigator Sasaki, it’s been a few months since you went berserk. How are you holding up?”

Sasaki pretends not to notice the way his whole team flinched. “Ah, Akira-san, so good of you to worry about me! I’m fine, all healed up from the shot and the tongue-lashing you gave me.” He grins. “The Quinx have been such obedient children, it’s made me heal really fast.”

“Gross,” offers Urie in an undertone, and grunts, like he’s been kicked.

“That’s good,” Akira says. Her eyes are intense, boring into his mind. Sasaki finds that he can keep smiling at her. “About time you found some peace. Have some naan. And the coffee’s really good.”

As his team digs in with steadily increasing gusto, Sasaki glances out the window. The rain is letting up, and soft newborn sunshine falls across the city square. He looks up at the parting of the clouds.

“Sassan, she wasn’t kidding. The coffee really is good.”

Sasaki grins, and turns back to his Squad. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Outside, the sunlight grows brighter.

**Author's Note:**

> loosely based on the film Colorful by Hara Keiichi. Please feel free to point out any mistakes, as I'm not exactly up to date on :re.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
